O’DONNELL: Can I ask one other question David? Do you think, what about female or women politicians? Are they dignified and are there examples of when they have not? Or does it tend to be the men who less dignified?

BROOKS: Yeah, I think that’s mostly a matter of genetics. I do think that…I do think there’s loneliness.

O’DONNELL: That was just a softball, David, and you really hit it very well.

BROOKS: Yeah, I wish I could think of sort of St. Bernards, sloppy women who are licking their aides, but but no, I can’t think of any.

HARWOOD: I’m not going there.

O’DONNELL: Did you have a couple drinks at lunch, David? I mean, this is clearly.

BROOKS: No, you’ve hit me…I’m trying not to be too dignified and stuffy.

Brooks not trying to be "dignified and stuffy", is like Bernie Madoff trying not to hustle clients - Doesn't happen!

And, as you will see, there may be much more to this, as The Garlic had the name "David Brooks" and "Creepy" tied together some time ago.

The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership. But the campers' first visit to the pool suggested otherwise."When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool," Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. "The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately."

The next day the club told the camp director that the camp's membership was being suspended and their money would be refunded.

But, wait, it gets worse ...

The explanation they got was either dishearteningly honest or poorly worded."There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club," John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement.

For a quote like that, whether he knew about a pending media storm, or not, we are going to have to bend the Ignorant Dolt rules, and award John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club, a separate, his very own, all-by-himself, Ignorant Racist Dolt Award that he can proudly hang in the Duh Valley Swim Club trophy case.

The Valley Club has been a staple in the Huntingdon Valley community, since it's chartering in 1954!

We continue to carry on that tradition by staying engaged with many of the events happening around Lower Moreland and the surrounding communities.

I guess, practicing racism is one of those traditions John Duesler, and Duh Valley Club have continued to carry on.

Either that, or they are not staying engaged, fell asleep at the wheel, so-to-speak, and haven't got wind yet of things like the 1964 Civil Rights Act, or, for that matter, slavery had been abolished.

City of Brotherly Love ... Private Club of Closed, Ignorant Minds

We can only hope that Governor Ed Rendell marshals every possible agency in the state to descend upon the Duh Valley Club - Health Inspectors, Pool Inspectors, OSHA, lawyers - just empty out the state offices, dig through every obscure, 200-year-old laws, and drain their pool, both literally, and figuratively.

But do, do let them display, tall and proudly, their Instant Racist Ignorant Dolt Crown and Sceptre...

John Duesler, chief Instant Racist Ignorant Dolt, might be able to use them as inspiration, for when he next has to issue a quote ...

(If you want to express your thoughts (or send this post) to John Duesler, and Duh Valley Club, here's their Contact Page, with address, telephone and email)

Thus we still live in an era in which you have to have been wrong to be respectable. You’re not considered serious about national security unless you were for invading Iraq; you’re not considered a serious political analyst unless you spent the last 3 years of the Bush administration predicting a Republican comeback; you’re not considered a serious economic analyst unless you dismissed the idea that the Bush Boom, such as it was, rested on a housing bubble.

That’s why the firing of Dan Froomkin now makes a perverse sort of sense. As long as the right was in power, he was in effect the Post’s designated moonbat, someone who attracted readers but didn’t threaten the self-esteem of the self-perceived serious people at the paper. But now he looks like someone who was right when the serious people were wrong — and that means he has to go.

So, the clock was started, the wait was on, to see who would pick up, or, where Dan Froomkin would land.

Today, the buzzer went off - Huffington Post gets the wreath of roses.

Both Emptywheel, and Glen Greenwald broke with the news this morning.

Emptywheel, gleefully, with charts, noted that "So the WaPo wanted to silence Dan Froomkin. And instead, their stupid decision has led to Dan Froomkin getting hired by an outlet with greater online circulation than them."

In yet another sign of how online media outlets are strengthening as their older establishment predecessors are struggling to survive, The Huffington Post has hired Dan Froomkin to be its Washington Bureau Chief and regular columnist/blogger. Froomkin will oversee a staff of four five reporters and an Assistant Editor, guide The Huffington Post's Washington reporting, and write at least two posts per week to be featured on its main page and Politics page. I learned last night of the hiring and spoke to both Arianna Huffington and Froomkin this morning.

[snip]

While this pairing is, in some ways, a natural one (even the Post Ombudsman suggested that "Web sites like The Huffington Post or Politico would seem a perfect fit"), there are also potential sources of tension. As a practitioner of what he calls "accountability journalism" -- "explaining how Washington works; pulling no punches" -- Froomkin has been a vehement critic of the Obama administration for the last several months, while The Huffington Post frequently trumpeted (some might say "cheerleading") the Obama campaign and even his presidency (though it has become mildly more critical of Obama in recent months; its screaming, red headline today: "White House May Cave on Public Option"). Will Froomkin's harsh criticisms of Obama alienate an Obama-loving HuffPost readership?

And given the central importance of Arianna Huffington's personal relationships with key media figures and those in power, will Froomkin's unrestrained criticisms of many of those same people undermine a key aspect of The Huffington Post's business and promotional strategies? Both Huffington and Froomkin insist that he will have full editorial freedom, though that commitment is often more easily embraced in theory than in practice.

New York City will pay $10,001 to settle a federal lawsuit on behalf of a Queens man who was ejected from the old Yankee Stadium last August after trying to use the bathroom during the playing of “God Bless America.” In addition, the team has publicly declared that it has no policy prohibiting fans from moving about during the playing of the patriotic song, which the team began playing during games after 9/11.

[snip]

But in a stipulation [pdf] as part of the settlement of the lawsuit against the team and the city, the Yankees declared “that they have no policy or practice at the new Yankee Stadium that imposes any restrictions on fans wishing to move about the Stadium during the playing of ‘God Bless America’ to do not also apply during the rest of the game.” The team also said it had no intention of instituting such a policy.

Gee, thanks Yankee Management, and the City of New York ...

I am relieved to know people won't be thrown in jail, for not worshiping the flag, every single moment of the day, and, especially, when they gotta go ...

I registered for the draft, nearly a year after I was mandated to, and only because my parents were aghast I hadn't, my WWII Navy veteran father driving me to the draft office.

I sweated it out for a year, before the Selective Service Draft was ended (while I researched Canada at the local library).

We had four guys from the neighborhood come home in body bags (all under the age of 22), and more-than-a-handful returned as junkies, more fucked up than when they left (which, for a few, that was truly unfathomable - and frightening)

Robert McNamara died today at age 93. As Secretary of Defense for Presidents John F. Kennedy and more notably Lyndon Johnson in the mid-1960s, it was McNamara who oversaw America's tragic military buildup in Vietnam. That made McNamara -- right up until today's news -- a vivid anti-icon to those Baby Boomers who opposed the war -- and I think you can make the case that his death is that of the most historical significance of the slew of recent "celebrity" passings, no matter how many millions of people are gathering outside the Staples Center to remember the Gloved One.

[snip]

Regardless of your religious or spiritual beliefs, it's hard not to imagine there wasn't some higher purpose to McNamara's longevity. You could argue that it was a cosmic punishment, of sorts, to live so many years with the searing memories of so many who died so horrifically because of his misguided decisions from the comforts of his big desk at the Pentagon. Or you argue that he was still here in the early 2000s as a kind of a warped prophet, a flesh-and-blood monument to the folly of militarism. If that is true, then the fact that America refused to pay any attention is Robert McNamara's greatest tragedy of all.

Japanese honeybees form "bee balls" - mobbing and smothering the predators.

This has previously been referred to as "heat-balling", but a study has now shown that carbon dioxide also plays a role in its lethal effectiveness.

In the journal Naturwissenschaften, the scientists describe how hornets are killed within 10 minutes when they are trapped inside a ball of bees.

Japanese giant hornets, which can be up to 5cm long, are voracious predators that can devastate bees' nests and consume their larvae.

But, if the bees spot their attacker in time, they mount a powerful defence in the form of a bee ball. This study found that the heat inside the bee ball alone was not enough to reliably kill the hornets.

[snip]

His team recreated experimental bee balls and took direct measurements from inside them.

They anaesthetised giant hornets and fixed them to the tip either of a thermometer probe, or the inlet of a gas detector.

Once the hornets recovered from their anaesthesia, the probes were touched to the bees' nest.

"The bee ball formed (around the hornet) immediately," said Dr Sakamoto.

[snip]

As the temperature inside the ball increased to more than 45C, the carbon dioxide level also rose sharply.

In a parallel experiment, the scientists found that in an atmosphere relatively high in carbon dioxide, the temperature at which hornets could survive for 10 minutes was lowered.

"So we concluded that carbon dioxide produced inside the bee ball by the honeybees is a major factor, together with temperature, involved in the bees' defence."

Fix Iraq

About Me

J. Thomas Duffy created and lauched 'The Garlic in 2005.
Mr. Duffy is an accomplished writer, with experience as a newspaper reporter, radio writer, comedy and stand-up writer, the author of three children's books (unpublished, so far) and, and, through a good number of his writing experience, actually received payment for it.
Mr. Duffy is also a Contributing Editor on the blog, 'The Reaction' and a Contributing Writer to the blog 'The Moderate Voice.
In his spare time, Mr. Duffy likes to promulgate that is actually the dog salivating that caused Pavlov to ring the bell.